Waiting for Paradiski

Sometimes time moves fast, at other points it drags and sometimes stops altogether. You don't have to be patient to work here but it helps. From the embarkation point in the car park of the Madjeski Stadium we have become well practiced in the mysterious and tedious art of waiting. Waiting for the coach, waiting to board the coach, waiting for one driver to break his wrist, waiting to find out whether we wait for a replacement. And then there was the waiting for the Ferry, waiting to get off the ferry, waiting for the replacement driver at Charles De Gaulle. Not to mention the waiting at various stops, snow chains on, snow chains off, snow chains on again.

This is a big operation by any means, when you transport of hundreds of mostly green season staff in tens of coaches over hundreds of miles something is bound to go south somewhere. Yet at each point the wait and lack of knowledge becomes more grating and harder to bear. So far the staff have proved brilliant, relaying information when they receive it themselves. Yet the French Alps are a law unto themselves, and when it comes to it, so are the French coach drivers.

Your host's accommodation is a step above basic perhaps, 4 guys will eventually fill the apartment leaving very little room for movement or breathing. The apartment is in a block away from the chalets, which has its positives and negatives. On the up side, we can make noise, we can drink and do what we like within reason. On the downside, its a 10 minute trudge through a warren of buildings and corridors to reach the chalets where we will ply our trade. When you factor in the walk to and from, with skis and such it soon eats into any planned ski time during the day.

And so while your host has waited outside coaches, inside coaches, on ferries, in youth hostels and apartment foyers, there is still one thing which we are all waiting for. We wait for the opening of the chair lifts, for the powder and pristine pistes. Oh and the guests of course.